The use of foamed materials for thermal and sonic insulation has long been recognized in the construction and automotive fields. In the past, such foamed insulation materials have generally been preformed, sized into appropriate shape, and inserted into the volume to be insulated.
A drawback with such preformed foamed materials is the difficulty of inserting such materials into irregularly-shaped volumes. Such insertion requires costly and time-consuming shaping steps. Additionally, such insertion greatly restricts the assembly process as the foam may be inserted into the desired volume only while such volume is substantially completely exposed. Moreover, such manual means of application is relatively slow and is, therefore, commercially undesirable.
A problem also encountered in the past with foamed compositions is that such compositions generally exhibit poor adhesion to the surfaces to which they are to be applied. Consequently, such prior art compositions generally require the use of adhesives to bond them into place, thereby necessitating additional expense as well as additional processing steps.
Therefore, it would be desirable to possess a foamable composition which could be more easily formed into irregular shapes and/or which could be more easily applied onto a substrate surface. Moreover, it would be desirable to possess a foamable and curable composition which, when foamed and cured, would exhibit enhanced adhesion to substrates.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a sprayable and foamable insulating composition which is easily adapted to irregular volumes.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a method for applying a foamed insulating composition to a substrate, which method allows for increased freedom and/or speed in the assembly process.
It is yet another object to provide a sprayable and foamable composition which will exhibit enhanced adhesion to substrate surfaces upon foaming and curing.
The above and additional objects will become more fully apparent from the following description and Example.